backpacking, adventuring, and nonsense

Author: Josh

How can I make this item more useful? How can I make it more accessible? How can it fit better? Do I even need it? These thoughts entered my head about once a day while on trail. Not that I’m complaining – I love thinking about how to become more efficient with my gear set. You can see my starting gear list here. I’ll eventually update the spreadsheet version of this with notes on each item. This was extremely valuable on my Long Trail hike – write down what worked and what didn’t upon trip completion, then reference before the next hike.

Packing

Wait, I thought this was about gear? Since gear is being carried most of the time on a thru hike, how it fits/sits/packs influences what you think of it. Plus I did say these were “ramblings” not organized thoughts with some sort of flow!

First off, routine is important while packing in my opinion, for a couple of reasons. I’m sure many people are fine stuffing things in their pack randomly each day, but I can’t stand it.

Routines generally increase in speed with repetition. As the hike went on, our wake up to hiking time decreased by several minutes.

When packing is routine, you know where to expect each item and don’t have to look for it. The chance of losing something is lessened.

After a few weeks on trail, it’s easy to get into a morning routine. Here’s mine in all its obsessively detailed glory:

Alarm goes off at 5:45 am and I grab my hiking shirt and pants, toss them in my sleeping bag or under my pad to warm up a bit, then doze off for a few more minutes.

Unpack my puffy from my pillow, take off my sleep shirt/pants and put on the hiking shirt/pants. Pack the sleep clothes into the pillow and put on my puffy.

Stuff my sleeping bag into it’s dry bag.

Deflate, roll up, and fold my sleeping pad into a square shape.

My pack is stored in the vestibule so I grab that and take everything out of it – this may seem weird, but I found it a lot easier (and just as fast) to pack everything into an empty pack each morning, rather than try and stuff things around where items settled overnight.

Put the sleeping bag in dry bag into the bottom of the backpack.

Vertically position my clothes/pillow dry bag in the pack off to one side.

At this point nature usually calls, and while I’m out of the tent I grab our Ursacks.

Slide squared sleeping pad into front of main compartment of backpack – this worked way better than storing it rolled up and saved some space.

Take down tent, put into stuff sack and compress into remaining open spot in backpack, also vertically. I experimented with stuffing it without the stuff sack, which just resulted in everything else in the pack getting grimy/wet. The stuff sack weights nothing and is CF anyways.

A couple of other packing related thoughts that made the day to day routine easier:

Use a different colored bottle cap for dirty water bottle/bladder, just so you always know what’s what.

If you have a ZPacks Duplex and you haven’t tried rolling vs stuffing, you should! Saved me a surprising amount of space, made packing the bag easier. It’s pretty nominal extra effort.

Stuffing:

Rolling:

Gear Swaps/Replacements

There’s not a great way to turn this into a paragraph, so I figured I’d leave it here in case it’s of use to any future PCT hikers. Here’s a chronological list of what I changed gear wise, during our hike. Note that we skipped most of the Sierra’s, stopped in San Francisco for a couple weeks before skipping up to South Lake Tahoe.

Swapped out boots for trail runners, upgraded to 4 port USB charger, new toothpaste, sent home Bear bag rope

Got rid of scoop, we both don’t need one

Sent home pot, capilene, got new toothbrush, insoles/superfeet, and OR sun hoody in Bend

Oddly enough, after a few months, I found myself wanting an extension cord every time we were in town. It’s not ultralight, a bit bulky, and I never ended up actually carrying one though. It would have been nice for situations with limited plugs, or space near plugs. i.e Using that random outlet behind a store front that doesn’t quite fit your USB adapter. Or when the cheap hotel has beds blocking the plugs, etc.

How did everything hold up?

This was the state of my gear after 700 miles, while taking a few days off trail in Sam Francisco:

Backpack showing the dirt a little:

Overall I’m quite satisfied with the gear chosen and how it held up. Over the course of the trip:

Sleeping pad was the only critical failure – I punctured a hole in it after about ~1400 miles of use. Easy field repair with patch that came with it, lasted the rest of the trip with no leaks.

“The Big 3” are all well worn, but have plenty of life left for another long distance hike.

As long as I’m not tempted too much by new fabrics or designs, I expect to reuse most all of this gear for the next long distance hike.

The fall begins with a a weird feeling of great success filled with failure. We decided to forgo the southern portion of the Oregon Coast Trail in favor of more time with friends and a road trip cross country home. It’s been a great summer of backpacking and vagabonding, making it over 1500 miles on foot.

We tried to rent a small SUV, but ended up getting a brand new Ram 1500 with a HEMI V8 for the same price. Not the most efficient, but it was preferred by all of us. After not having a home for months, the shelter and transportation range the truck provided was a huge luxury.

Headed North, first views of Mount Rainier.

Sunset pictures from Birch Bay State Park in the Northwestern corner of Washington.

This is the view from our friends driveway – they recently moved to Ferndale, WA and it is paradise out there. We stayed with them for several days, enjoying cooking and lounging around the farm and property. Sara and I are hoping to come back to this area in the near future… it’s a beautiful place to live.

Smoky afternoon in Whitefish, MT. We headed to Glacier National Park the next morning, despite the wildfires there. It’s crazy how many miles we’ve traveled around, through, and to wildfires this summer.

Driving the Going to the Sun Road through Glacier…

Smoke over the east side of the park, as seen from Logan Pass.

Like the PCT, only with hand rails for the feint of heart.

The East side of Glacier NP was super smoky, enough to burn the lungs after awhile. Sadly, the day after we were there, Sperry Chalet burned down. It was one of two historic chalets in the park built in the early 1900s.

Back home in Michigan, more big bodies of water but no salt, sharks, or jellyfish.

Delicious pasties and Michigan beer.

Brief stop at Ian’s hunting cabin.

And so it goes. Back home (once we find a place to actually sleep, hah!), at least for now… already starting planning for our return trip to finish the remaining Pacific Crest Trail miles!

I’d been looking forward to this since the start of the trip – seeing a bunch of my friends from back home, our luxurious Airbnb’s reserved nearly a year ago. The eclipse derailed our Oregon Coastal hiking, but was one of the coolest parts of this summers’ travel so far.

Views from hiker/biker camp during sunrise and short hike at Cape Lookout State Park.

Airbnb luxuries.

Made some bread, for the first time ever. It turned out pretty well, was not a complete failure, and I’m going to make it to excess now. Really missed the kitchen during while long distance hiking – every meal is either in the Jetboil or eating out.

Actually pretty surprised at my phones ability to capture this moment. We enjoyed it from a hot tub, sipping on mimosas. Pretty cool to feel the temp drop a good 20 degrees and a brief bit of darkness.

Just a forewarning – this is more of a collection of notes than a trail journal. Since there’s not too much information about the Oregon Coast as a thru hike, we took notes we thought may be of help to other hikers. We are also hiking at an EXTREMELY slow pace, enjoying our wind down from PCT life. We are also hiking this pace to time meeting up with friends for the solar eclipse, within the totality zone. The thru hike could be done in 20 days easily if pushing it, but the frequent towns and beach walks are a constant temptation to slow you down and enjoy all the Coast has to offer.

Day 1 (8/11/17) Lot C to Fort Stevens State Park Hiker/Biker Camp. Taxi, Astoria to Warrenton. Hitch Warrenton to Hammond. Road walk Hammond/Bouy 9 to Lot C. Gates to Fort Stevens close at 6pm. Started trail at official point around 6pm. Easy beach walk at lowering tide ~3.75 mi to Peter Iredale. Follow trail at Peter Iredale 1 mi to campground. Hiker/biker campsites available for $6/person. Picnic tables, fire rings, close to restroom and free showers. Busy park on weekends.

Day 2 (8/12/17) Fort Stevens State Park Hiker/Biker Camp to Del Ray Beach State Rec Area.Started hike around noon. Checked out Coffenbury lake before continuing to beach. Sunny morning/afternoon, lots of people and vehicles on beach. Walked beach from Peter Iredale access point to Del Ray Beach State Rec Area/Highlands Ln and camped nearby.

Day 3 (8/13/17) Del Ray Beach State Rec Area to Ebb Tide Oceanfront Inn/Seaside. Hiked another few miles to Pacific Way beach access and into Gearhart. Used Google Maps to guide through town avoiding 101 when possible and continued into Seaside. Met up with Ian, spent the night a the Ebb Tide Oceanfront Inn.

Day 4 (8/14/17) Ebb Tide Oceanfront Inn/Seaside to Hug Point State Park. Hiked out of Seaside along the beach before following neighborhood road up to tillamook head. 1000ft gain through muddy forest up to head. Nice backpacker site with three structures, large picnic table, fire pit and vault toilet. Hiked down to Indian point, trail washout forced roadwalk out of park. Hitch from from friendly couple to Cannon Beach, guy hiked PCT. Beach walk rest of the evening to Hug Point. Tide too high to get around, set up camp and waited to cross in am.

Day 5 (8/15/17) Hug Point State Park to Nehalem Bay State Park. Hiked around Hug Point at lower tide and beach walked Arch Cape beach, heading inland on south end of beach on East Shingle Mill Lane. Hiked down this road until the suspension bridge down a driveway on the right. There’s an OCT blaze and typically a truck with a boat in the driveway, according to a local. The trail resumed here and took us through Oswald West State Park. Near the south end of the park where the trail crosses 101, we road walked (there is a sidewalk most of the way, only about 0.25mi without) to Sunset Drive on the north end of Manzanita. Keeping right down Meadow Loop, there was a beach access trail. We continued along the beach a couple miles, stopped for dinner, then headed inland at Horizon Lane which took us to the registration booth at Nehalem Bay State Park. Camped in the hiker/biker camp.

Day 6 (8/16/17) Nehalem Bay State Park to Barview Jetty Park. Beach walked a few miles to the end of Nehalem Bay, tried to hitch across bay, but after 2 hours with no success, started walking the bay. At the north end of the bay, we hit a road and hitched south to Rockaway Beach. Grabbed dinner in town and walked the beach to Barview Jetty. Camped at the county park.

Day 7 (8/17/17) Barview Jetty Park to Cape Lookout State Park. Walked railroad tracks from park to docks at Garibaldi. No luck with boat hitch, grabbed lunched and started road walk around bay. A local picked us up and drove us across the bay. Walked the old road on the spit to the beach trail, then the beach to Cape Meares. Trail up through park was easy to find, wouldn’t be bad even at high tide to access. Walked through Cape Meares National Wildlife Refuge and State Park, by Octopus Tree and road walked Cape Meares Loop road to Oceanside. Beach walked Oceanside to Netarts, follow 131 to Netarts Bay Drive. Road walk until hitch to Cape Lookout State Park. Beautiful hiker/biker camp! Just to the left from entrance; away from other camping loops.

After a lengthy discussion of logistics and many beers, we determined it was easiest to get from Bend to the Oregon coast, via our friends in Portland. The fire closures leave us missing trail and the smoky haze, scenery. It feels easier to hike a straight path, less segmented, another season. And for some reason, all we could rent car wise was a twelve person transit van. We had fun with it.

Big thanks to the Streu's for picking us up in Portland and hosting us for several days! We took a nice trip to Wachella Falls, did a little bit of bouldering, and looked for views through the smoky haze covering the city and gorge. At this point we decided the most fun we could having finishing out the backpacking season was on the coast.

So we headed to Astoria, close to Fort Stevens State Park, and spent a day doing touristy things and stocking up on some hiker foods.

Fort George had some good beer – we've been to several breweries in the past week and this stood out. Best food we had in town as well!

And now we start southwards on the Oregon Coast Trail. Maybe we'll complete the it this summer, maybe not, but the contrast between the PCT thru hike and this is welcomed – clouds, cool weather, no fires or snow! For now we walk the beach, the cliffs, and explore the towns in between.